The Best of Finance Blogosphere: Revival Edition

It’s been a while since I did one of these. Based on the comments on this article I had decided to discontinue the The Best of Finance Blogosphere roundups. It has been quite some time now, and I have truly missed the opportunity to give a shout out to fellow bloggers saying, “Yes, I read your articles, and I loved them… keep up the good work!” So today I decided to bring the Best of… back. I haven’t yet decided if I will make this a weekly feature like it used to be – for now, let’s just take it one day at a time.

First order of business is the many Congratulations that are due (some over due).

• Lazy man is now a lazy “married” man!
• Sun was unfortunate to lose his job, but found a new job in less than two weeks, not an easy feat by any measure!
• Flexo’s networth surpassed 100K and
• Tricia’s credit card debt went below $20K.

Congratulations y’all! Break out the good wine and celebrate. And know that several people you don’t know and who don’t really know you are rejoicing with you!

Now onto some of the great articles I have come across recently (in no particular order) –

Resident Alien has an interesting article titled For the Frugal Mind: Cheapest days to shop that discusses when is the best time to buy different things such as groceries, books, airline tickets etc. I love the idea of saving money and found this article really intriguing – I am certainly going to test out some of these theories!

What’s in a name? – That’s the question asked by SVB in this article about name discrimination! I had never really paid much attention to it but after reading the article I realized how true some of it is. I mean, if you needed to have a surgery and your only choices were Dr. Candy or Dr. Lisa and you knew nothing about either of them and had to randomly pick one, who would it be? Amazing, isn’t it? I wonder what people associate “foreign” names like Zhang or Ravi with…

Golbguru opens up another interesting question about shopping at Walmart. I agree with Golb - on principle, I don’t have anything against Walmart. I just don’t get it when people vehemently argue against it! But like some of the comments, I do find it is too crowded and can find fresher groceries at a local grocery chain, and so, if possible, I avoid going to one.

English Major has an eye for unique personal stories and a talent for presenting them beautifully. In this article she shares how one of her friends has an unusual financial plan. I don’t want to be all judgmental about her friend that I don’t even know, but still…. I can’t help but cringe :(

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that I am fascinated with entrepreneurial stories. And I found this one on Blunt Money filled with lessons learnt from a real experience. The article is not at very scanable, but stay with it, and you will come out learning quite a lot.

Is your house branded? No? Tsk Tsk Tsk... :) MBH had this interesting article about Brand-name Houses which are co-branded with celebrity names. Seriously, what next? I live in a house designed in part by Martha Stewart, eat Applebee’s fresh grilled food designed by chef Tyler Florence and chat on the red Moto RAZR designed specifically for Bono’s Aids cause and now endorsed by Beckham?

Finally, a detailed FAQ-like article about credit card balance transfer offers at PFAdvice. When we were getting out of debt, we relied heavily on the 0% balance transfer offers to avoid paying huge amount in interest. If you are looking to reduce your debt, I highly recommend this approach of consolidating the debt under one or two zero (or very low) interest cards. But the credit card companies are next only to loan sharks, and if you are not vary you will be bitten badly. This article is a good place to start looking for more information on whether this path is right for you.

That's it for today. Y'all have a good weekend!

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